


The Dame

by orphan_account



Category: Helvetica (Webcomic)
Genre: Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21839107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: A bookstore date and a brief encounter with someone Lucy hadn't expected to ever see again.
Relationships: Autumn/Helvetica/Lucy
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	The Dame

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sybilius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Ashes to Oxide: The Tapes of Detective Lucy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740916) by [sybilius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius). 



They’d decided to go to a bookstore for a date, him and Autumn and Helvetica. A date and a shopping trip, Autumn had declared. “For Christmas gifts. Our first Christmas together.”

“Not much of a date, is it, if we’re going to be trying to keep our purchases secret?” But Lucy hadn’t been able to keep an indulgent smile from his face.

“We’ll do it in pairs!” Autumn had declared, and had laid out her plan for the afternoon. The pair of them first, finding a gift for Helvetica, him and Helvetica finding something for her, and then…

Right now, she and Helvetica are across the store, deep in the mystery section, the books already purchased tucked under their arms, wrapped in brown paper and string, an affectation that feels distinctly old-fashioned, though Lucy doesn't know why.

Lucy had been drawn to the philosophy section in spite of himself, though he wasn’t sure whether he was actually looking at the books. More like staring blankly, but he lingered anyway.

It turned out to be a mistake, lingering there too long.

“You look good.”

Her voice sends a chill down his spine, even now, months—more than a year?—after he last saw her. He doesn’t acknowledge her, but that doesn’t stop her from talking to him, and he finds himself frozen in place, listening to her voice in spite of himself.

“You ever read that Nietzsche?”

Another quiet moment as he refuses to answer.

“Let me give you some further reading. Just in case you’re interested in expanding your world view beyond the mundane.”

He watches an arm in a silk blouse, a delicate finger, as she reaches past him and tugs a few books forward on the shelf. He doesn’t look at the titles or the names on the spines; he turns to her instead with a frown on his face, studying her.

“You _do_ look good,” she says, studying him as well, her head tilted to one side.

“Lucy!” Autumn’s voice breaks the moment, and Wit smiles, sharp and brittle, and turns away. Lucy doesn’t want to watch her go, but his gaze is fixed on her, on the shine of those nylons, on the jut of a bony hip through her skirt as she walks away from him.

Autumn reaches his side in a moment and tucks her arm through his. “Who was that? She looks familiar.”

“She’s a professor,” Lucy manages to say.

“I must have seen her around campus, then.”

“Must have.”

“But what a dame, huh?” Autumn is smiling and teasing him, and oh, it hurts. And then she says something that makes it worse. “I wonder if I could pull that look off.”

“Don’t.” The word comes out wrong, harsh and rough in a throat that no longer exists.

Autumn recoils, just for a moment, and he feels like an ass. And then she smiles, a careful smile, and tucks her arm through his. “I couldn’t pull it off, anyway.”

Lucy grunts, and together they go find Helvetica, there at the front of the store, making their final purchase of the day. Helvetica turns from the counter with a second brown-paper-wrapped package in his arms and immediately frowns at the sight of Lucy, sliding in at Lucy’s other side, wrapping his free arm around Lucy’s waist and offering up a half-hug that Lucy leans into.

He feels fragile, just now. Not a way he’s used to feeling, or at least not since Autumn brought the three of them together. And they notice it, his partners, notice it without him having to say it, and they offer what they can.

Tonight he finds himself tangled in the arms of both of the people he loves, bare bone on bone, suffused in what warmth these bodies have to offer. They don’t ask questions, but he tells them anyway.

They listen.

It’s more than enough.


End file.
